Irish National Opera, Dublin - 2021
Elaine Kelly, Edwina Casey, Gavan Ring, Ben McAteer, John Molloy
O'Reilly Theatre, Dublin - 3rd December 2021
An ambitious aim also to take it out on tour, but just in case, the production was designed to work as a filmed piece that could also be taken out, somewhat appropriately, to the remotest of locations in Ireland where opera never reaches, subsequently followed by a tour of live performances. Having no remit to take their productions to Northern Ireland (if only), it was still worth the journey to Dublin on the day that an announcement was made of further restrictions to be put into place as concern grows about the potential spread.of the Omicron variant of Covid.
Such is the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on society and the arts that it is inevitable that it is going to affect how we view a performance of any opera now (and probably for years to come). Not that Maxwell Davies's opera needed any assistance to consider the fragility of the human psyche and the detrimental affects that of being locked in isolation while danger lurks outside, but there's no doubt that there was a heightened awareness of the reality. The efforts to put a little space between us and our seated mask-wearing neighbours perhaps brought an added frisson to the work's eerie account of three lighthouse workers living in close proximity who mysteriously disappear or succumb to the horrors of imposed isolation.
Based on a true story, there is however little of anything factual really to go on in consideration of what might have happened to the three lighthouse men. The less you have to work with however the more you have to imagine, and when it comes to the workings of the human mind, anything is possible. Whether you seek to find a rational explanation or probe for something supernatural, there are a whole lot of other factors that you can imagine lie between three men living in close proximity to each other in strained circumstances. The way that Peter Maxwell Davies chooses to explore these tensions in a lyrical setting is certainly imaginative and creative.
The composer takes the first part of the opera to set the scene, placing it in a courtroom, establishing that there is nothing about what the relief wardens encounter when they arrive on the island can definitively be established as fact. The little details and differences in their testimonies might or might not be significant, and that can only contribute to the mystery. Adding to the ambiguity of the work, the same three performers singing the roles of the relief team become the three missing men as the remainder of the opera explores the tensions of three men of very different character living in close quarters with each other.
Sandy, Blazes and Arthur are indeed very different in nature and temperament. Blazes and Arthur are argumentative, one we discover has experienced a violent family life and background, the other a religious fundamentalist. Sandy sets out to describe a more romanticised view of his own background, as each of the men sing a song to describe their lives, but Sandy's song is corrupted by the other men joining in with a cut and mix of the three verses of the song. It's very clever in its wordplay, but in it's musical construction, each man having their own set of instruments associated with them, it's also representative of the way that they conflict in their interaction.
In his pre-performance talk before the Dublin performances, the INO's musical director Fergus Sheil seemed to be just relating a lot of the plot, but there is a good reason for that. The music and the instrumentation employed are deeply intertwined with what takes place in the opera - even more so in a chamber opera than in most traditional opera, or at least in a different way. Maxwell Davies's music here is hugely expressive of character and nuance, as well as atmosphere, creating musical as well as character tensions.
The stage (and film version) director Edwina Casey also sought to highlight the tensions of the situation in the simple but claustrophobic set with occasional flows of eerie dry ice effects to contribute to the sense of isolation and creeping tensions. Sinéad Wallace's lighting also contributed hugely to the mood. The singing of the three roles by Gavan Ring, Ben McAteer and John Molloy was superb. All of these roles have very challenging ranges for a tenor, baritone and bass, and although relatively short, with only three singers singing the whole 70 minutes of the opera, it can be intense and demanding.
Most effective of all was the music and playing of the Irish National Opera Orchestra on a diverse array of chamber orchestra instruments. The playing was outstanding under the conducting of Elaine Kelly, all the more evident when you seeing and hearing the individual players tackling the idiosyncrasies of the score in close quarters. The sound they managed to bring to individual, duo playing and as an ensemble was stunning, creating a cacophony of terror and madness in the confines of the O'Reilly theatre.
Whether it's a ghost story or a character study or a human study, The Lighthouse does have many layers that can be drawn out and explored, suggesting that if there is a mystery there, it's the mystery of the nature of humans and their relationship to their environment and other people. The spoken and musical refrain that "it is all automatic now" perhaps suggests that while it might eliminate some human stresses, technology might bring its own problems with human alienation. There's a balance to be struck there, but as current circumstances show, it's not always something that is within our control.
Links: Irish National Opera
